


Just a Girl

by sandy_s



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 03:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13045686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandy_s/pseuds/sandy_s
Summary: Sequel to “What the Bloody Hell?!” Angel returns from hell, but this time, Spike’s still around, and Buffy goes to him first. Set in season three.Dedication: For Sunalso who is having a hard time. And for OffYourBird...hope you enjoy the sequel to your other present!Disclaimer: All belongs to Joss and Disney.





	Just a Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OffYourBird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OffYourBird/gifts), [sunalso](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunalso/gifts).



> Story Notes: Special and huge thank you to swifthorse for the amazing beta job!

“He’s back,” the Slayer whispered, the emotions on her face shifting so quickly that Spike couldn’t interpret them despite the amount of time they’d spent together over the last few months.

 

“I know,” Spike said, feigning nonchalance despite the panic that was rapidly blooming in his chest. His grandsire’s scent was all over her. If she stayed here long, his whole place was going to smell like Angelus. Spike couldn’t imagine trying to sleep with that stench mucking up his dreams. Not anymore. Not ever again.

 

Buffy frowned and took a few steps toward him, coming further into his crypt. “You do?”

 

“Can smell him,” Spike said in a “duh” tone. He avoided her gaze while taking a step back and pretending to be very interested in retrieving a blood bag from the mini-fridge in his crypt – a crypt that was much more comfortable than the mansion ever had been.

 

Despite her red leather jacket and the sweater tied around her waist, the Slayer hugged her arms to her chest and shivered. “I don’t know how I feel about it. H-he’s not himself.”

 

Spike sprawled in his recliner, legs splayed open, and used a fang to pierce the bag. The Slayer didn’t like to watch him eat, so he hoped she wouldn’t notice how her last statement rattled him. He’d been helping Buffy fight demons and other nasties behind the scenes all summer. She’d been supplying him blood as she’d promised, and though he made a grand show of being his own vampire, he’d started to lower his guard and allow himself to enjoy her company. She’d even helped find and furnish the crypt where he was currently living. The thought of Angelus being back reminded him of all the times the Grand Poof had interfered in his unlife, putting him in his place like a bully pushed down a young, defenseless school lad. “Soulless, then?”

 

Buffy sat tentatively on the edge of the loveseat farthest away from Spike, studying her hands, which she cradled in her lap. “I-I don’t think so. I don’t know, actually.”

 

“How not himself?” Spike’s question came out harder and more clipped than he intended, though he wasn’t sure why the hell he cared. He briefly acknowledged that the return of Angelus brought back a certain distance between the Slayer and him that had evaporated with his grandsire’s absence. The feeling was familiar and entirely too disconcerting to contemplate for long. He shoved the emotion aside, trying to focus on the taste of blood on his tongue.

 

“He’s. . .” Buffy paused, and Spike realized that he hadn’t seen her this exposed since the afternoon he held her in his arms after she closed Acathla. She seemed to be attempting to summon up her strength, and Spike found himself softening. “Like a wild animal.”

 

“What do you mean?” Spike asked gently, trying to lick the blood off his lower lip and then wiping the unreachable bits away with his thumb.

 

The Slayer shrugged. “Wild like he almost didn’t recognize me. H-he attacked me in the woods, but it wasn’t really like an attack. I-I mean, I subdued him easily. He had blood on his face f-from somewhere else, but he didn’t really say anything at all.”

 

Spike sat forward then, his bare forearms on his thighs. He studied the Slayer’s face. Something wasn’t right with her. Her eyes were clear, but he thought he caught a whiff of dried tears beneath the strong musk that was Angelus. “Where is he now?”

 

Buffy picked at her fingernails. “At the mansion. I left him there.”

 

What the bloody hell was she thinking?! “So, he just got back from hell where he was changed god knows how, and _you left him there_?!” Spike tried to back pedal on the intensity of the last words but failed because now he couldn’t contain his own twitchiness. Though he was on his feet and pacing back and forth in the small area, he did manage to not respond to the desire to storm out of the crypt and head straight to the mansion to sort out the Slayer’s mistake.

 

She lifted her head when he moved in her direction and met his gaze. “I chained him up.” Fresh tears came then, flowing in mismatched streams down her cheeks. Her eyebrows drew down in irritation for a brief, almost imperceptible moment, but Spike noticed, and this stayed his movements. Good girl. “I’m not stupid.”

 

He sank down next to her on the loveseat. “Didn’t say you were, pet.”

 

She rolled her eyes at him. “Told you not to call me that.” Her venom was half-hearted.

 

“Sorry ‘bout that, pet.” He wasn’t above needling her until he got a smile. He’d been doing it all summer to inch her out of her grief over Angelus.

 

The corner of her mouth quirked up.

 

Then, Spike couldn’t help himself and stuck his foot in his mouth. “Planning to keep him as a pet vampire, too? Your dirty little secret?”

 

Buffy gazed into his eyes again, her own clear and earnest. “You’re not a dirty little secret.” She cocked her head. “You know you could come out to my friends and Giles anytime you want. You’re the one who insisted on being all behind-the-scenes-guy.”

 

“And I left it up to you,” Spike diverted. He wasn’t sure what to do there. He certainly didn’t want to pal around with the little redhead or her boy, and he was pretty sodding sure that the Watcher wouldn’t take kindly to the appearance of a new vampire at the Slayer’s side. The Slayer’s mother on the other hand – she’d welcomed him into her home and more than once now. The night after he’d gotten particularly bloodied up fighting that Talq’win demon who’d threatened to eat the local magic shop owner, Joyce had taken Spike in until Buffy came home. Joyce ordered him to take a shower and use one of the Slayer’s first aid kits while she heated up the blood that was stowed in the refrigerator for him. Hell, if the Watcher and the Slayer’s pals looked hard enough, they’d see what was right in front of their noses. There was a lot of talk in the demon community about Spike’s new alliance with the Slayer.

 

The bit of annoyance flickered over her face again. “Whatever.”

 

“At least, I’m not skulking around helping you behind the scenes. At least, you know right where I stand and where I’m coming from.” Unlike the ponce they both knew.

 

She sighed and rose. “You’re right. Got any spare blood?”

 

“What for?” Spike bloody well knew what for, but he wanted to know what she was thinking.

 

“For Angel. He looked half-starved. I thought maybe some blood might –”

 

“Might what? Make him less like an animal? Got news for you –”

 

“Do you, or don’t you?” Her voice was harder now. All right then.

 

Spike went back to his fridge, intentionally jostling her arm with his as he went by. “’Course, I have extra blood.” He swung open the door and pulled out a couple of packets. Then, he marched over to a crooked coat rack in the corner and shrugged on the duster he hadn’t worn in weeks, shoving the blood into the pockets.

 

“What are you doing?” She didn’t sound angry, just tired.

 

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “What’s it look like? I’m coming with you.”

 

The relief that washed over her face was palpable. “Thank you.”

 

In one motion, Spike moved to her side and gently swiped away the new tear that fell over her cheek. “Can’t have you going it alone.” In that moment, he realized that he was with her when Angelus departed this world, and Spike was determined to be there for her when Peaches returned. Spike wasn’t sure what this meant about him; he was just following his instincts again. Of late, said instincts always seemed to lead him to side with the Slayer and not against her.

 

* * *

 

Buffy abruptly stopped at the door to the mansion. Spike was just behind her, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t goad her like he normally might at the entrance to some lair of a demon-y type or a nest of fledglings. He merely waited the several seconds until she pushed the door open without a glance back.

 

She entered and almost immediately stood a little apart from Spike, her eyes fixed on the unmoving human-shaped figure that was curled up against the wall across the room. Heavy chains were clasped around the creature’s wrists, and Spike’s nostrils flared. The vampire was definitively Angelus.

 

Not as irrevocably fixated on his grandsire as the Slayer appeared to be, Spike scanned the room, taking in the fire Buffy must have started to breathe life into the cold, dark space. A scorch mark in the shape of a human body was seared into the concrete floor nearby, and as Spike cautiously approached, he sensed the flicker of power still emanating from the stain. He knelt and placed a bare hand on the unnaturally-warm stone and shuddered.

 

“What is it?” Buffy whispered, her voice barely audible over the crackle of the flames.

 

Spike closed his eyes, his face a mask of concentration as he tried to elucidate what kind of energy was coursing through his body and singeing the edges of his senses. “Magic of some sort, but not any sort of magic that I’ve sensed before.”

 

Buffy inched forward; Spike could hear her heart hammering away double time despite her outward calm. “What does that even mean?”

 

“Dunno, but I don’t tend to get tangled up in magic of this magnitude. It usually ends poorly.” Spike had hunted up spells for Dru two or three times in the past hundred or so years, but only when he was feeling desperate.

 

“He must have been sent back for a reason. How do we find out whether it’s to mess with me. . . or us? Or for some other reason?”

 

Picking up on the Slayer’s fear, Spike hastened to move away from the magic remnants, ending up elbow to elbow with the Slayer. “Don’t know how to suss it out without doing some dangerous-type magic ourselves.” Buffy hugged her arms tighter around her ribcage than she had in his crypt, and Spike felt a wave of compassion go through him. This, in and of itself, was becoming more dangerous than the magic he’d just referenced. “You should go and fill in your Watcher. Let me talk with. . .” He almost drawled, “Your honey,” but instead, he finished with, “Angelus.”

 

Buffy pressed her lips together, took a small hitching breath, and nodded. “Okay.”

 

Spike studied her rigid shoulders and worried expression, and though he was tempted to take her in his arms as he had that day in this very mansion, he held back. Instead, he caressed her with his tone, “Hey, there, love. It’s going to be all right. You don’t have to figure this all out now. Go fetch your Watcher. He wouldn’t want you to go it alone either.”

 

Buffy nodded again and headed toward the exit, her boots echoing in the quiet. Spike heard her stop, and he took his eyes off Angelus to peer back at her. Her eyes flashed with the passion that Spike liked to see. He fought back a grin.

 

“Don’t stake him,” she stated firmly.

 

“Tempting,” he admitted, but she frowned at him, lifted both eyebrows, and crossed her arms. He raised his palms to her. “Wasn’t going to. . . yet.”

 

The fire fell out of her eyes and was replaced by the earlier mix of vulnerability and some other emotion that he couldn’t quite interpret as she tilted her head and gave him a small smile. Spike was reminded that she was just a lone girl with the weight of the world like a yoke around her neck. “Thank you,” she said. Twice in one day. He was on a roll.

 

He merely smiled in return, and she was gone in a blink, no doubt running toward her Watcher’s flat. Spike listened until he could no longer hear her rapid footfalls, and then, he rounded on his grandsire. The berk still hadn’t moved, was lost in dreams.

 

Dreams that were about to end.

 

“Wakey, wakey.” Spike bellowed in a loud, deep voice, approaching the broad bare back, which startled at the sudden voluminous echo that broke the quiet.

 

Spike’s greeting was met with a low growl as the creature hunched up into a low ready stance, his face a demon mask that remained half-swathed in shadow – a mask that was far from angelic. Spike would recognize Angelus’s ridges and fangs anywhere.

 

Plucking a blood bag from his duster pocket, Spike dangled it from the end of his thumb and index finger and slowly swung it back and forth. Angelus ignored the blood and stared at Spike instead. “So, you’re in there after all. Not just feral, helpless Angel then.” Spike tossed the bag so that it arced through the air and landed neatly in the palm of the other vampire, chains rattling with the movement of his arms. “Good.”

 

Angelus tore into the bag greedily but continued eyeing Spike with caution.

 

Spike pushed his hand deep into the now empty space in his coat. “You might be wondering what I’m still doing here. In good ole Sunnyhell. Without Dru.”

 

Angel merely gulped blood.

 

“I’m here because you left a bloody hole in the Slayer’s heart. You tore it all apart. Same way you did to Dru and to. . . Time and again.” He meant to say “me” in addition to his sire’s name but didn’t. He wouldn’t give Angelus the satisfaction of knowing that he’d finally destroyed Spike’s relationship with his dark beauty once and for all with the last transgression. Spike swallowed, and with his next intake of unneeded air, he found himself spewing thoughts that had been percolating in the back of his mind for a long time. The words were those that he’d been too afraid to say because he’d wanted acceptance. “I won’t have you torturing another person like that. Not again. It’s one thing if it’s your food. Another altogether if she’s a person you say you love. I may have killed two Slayers. Lucked out with the first one. Studied the second. Knew her patterns inside and out. Both knew what they were getting with me. Fist and fangs and a rollicking good fight. Not mind games.” He hesitated. “Well, maybe a little of that, but only in sporting fun. Not the way you do it. With the knife twisting and the mental. . .” He searched for the right word and landed on, “Abuse.”

 

Angelus dropped the empty packet, and Spike threw him the second one without a thought. “And bugger all if I’m going to let you keep messing with this girl.” He meant Buffy. Angelus grunted, and Spike glared. “That’s right. She’s a girl, you idiot. She may be the Slayer, a Slayer who’s had to deal with more a girl in this day and age should have to deal with, but she’s still a girl at heart. Someday, when she’s a woman, she’ll be ready. Ready for more than the likes of you. You, who skulks in the shadows like a big non-communicative, mysteriously aloof poof, who can’t give her all that she really needs.” Spike wasn’t sure what he meant by that last bit, but he knew it was something beyond the requisite happiness curse. Spike kept going without analyzing too much. “But for now, she gets to be a girl for all the moments that she can be a girl. Don’t mess with her heart anymore. Or you’ll have me to contend with. That’s right. I’m not going anywhere. Not bloody sure why just yet, but you can count on it.”

 

With his diatribe finished, Spike strode forward, heedless of the possible danger, and slid down the wall to sit next to his grandsire, who had now finished both bits of blood and had donned his human face. Spike regarded Angelus, noticing the other vampire’s soul shining in his dark eyes and felt the tug of reluctant camaraderie in his gut. “So. Hell must have been _hell_ , eh, mate?”

 

Angel opened his mouth and confirmed in a scratchy, unused voice, “Definitely hell.”

 

The end.

 

11-28-17


End file.
